Chris Prussing has claimed her own niche on Bead-Patterns.com. She has excelled in offering the brightly colored, elaborate and so elegant Saraguro broad collar necklaces. These patterns stand out amongst the other offerings, and frankly I find impossible to resist. She also has some wonderful Right Angle Weave patterns.

Chris originally came from Montana. Having grown up with a backdrop of mountains, fir trees and lakes in small towns around the Columbia River, her eye for beauty grew keen. After high school, Chris spent 4 years as a fine arts major. While Chris did not earn her degree, she nonetheless earned a lot of knowledge and appreciation for the arts.

Chris moved to Alaska during the "pipeline era" and worked at a bureaucratic job for many years before deciding to change careers. A career change is never easy. Chris had to ask herself what she would be interested in doing. Her answer was beads. Since this decision was made back in the 1980's when beads and bead related information was hard to come by, this may have not been a gambler's sure bet. But nonetheless, she did what many of us would imagine to be fun: she opened a small bead store inside her spouse's electronics shop. It took her seven long years to generate enough income to quit her job, and she hasn't looked back. Chris credits her friend Flora, who operated "Sugarbug's Bead Shop" in the basement of her house, for inspiration and support.

When asked how she started designing. Chris says:

"I started stringing gemstone necklaces for sale at my tiny shop counter and in a local gallery in Juneau's downtown tourist district. Did well at this, but wanted to do something with seed beads. When two of our Juneau Bead Society members returned from a class in Right Angle Weave, I was intrigued by this method, and started working with it. Finding the single-needle method too awkward, I discovered that using two needles was actually quite easy. Not much was available then on this method, so I had pretty much an open field for exploration and discovery. Hardly a week goes by that I don't stumble across something interesting with this technique, even after using it for over five years now (maybe I'm just a slow learner...)."

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"While I've had success in having articles published in bead magazines (thanks greatly to the encouragement and support from the staff at Beadwork), the wait time between design inspiration and actual publication is quite long. When I get an idea, I want to share it _right now_! Bead-patterns.com is the ideal immediate-gratification pattern experience for both designers and patrons. I love coming up with nifty little projects that other beaders can use to explore Right Angle Weave."

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"After encountering Saraguro beadwork at Linda Belote's saraguro.org website, and purchasing some collars from Linda, I noticed that the Saraguro were using brick stitch in ways much different than U.S. beadists. The variety of Saraguro collars has been another journey of discovery, still ongoing. Again, sharing these patterns via Bead-Patterns.com is just about an ideal distribution process, as it generates a continuous income rather than a one-shot magazine article fee. Half my income from these patterns is shared amongst four beading cooperatives that the women of Saraguro have formed"

Chris's Variation

Pattern Available, Item 3710

Chris is especially proud of eking out a modest but self sufficient income from her love of beads. She is also proud of a book that she has in the works on Right Angle Weave (if you have Right Angle Weave projects you would like to see in her gallery section of the book, contact Chris!!).

Chris's Variation

Pattern Available, Item 5965

Pattern Available, Item 6422

Chris's final words of wisdom for beaders are this:
"An ongoing concern is the need for cooperation and honesty amongst us inhabitants of Planet Bead. Pirating someone else's design idea, no matter how small it may be, diminishes income opportunities for all of us. How to use someone else's idea for one's own income, artistic pleasure, so that both originator and user can profit? That is the question. My feeling is that we're all in this together, and it's better to partner-up in order to cut up the cake rather than retreat to the extremes of The Lone Genius vs. Pack of Thieves. Hence it's important for designers to work out ways to promote their work in an income-producing manner, and to educate followers and students about methods of using and teaching a design without giving away the farm. I think Bead-Patterns.com truly fill the gap here as an "idea outlet" alternative to printed publications and websites."